Your taxes at work: Ky. gives $$$ to coal companies' PR effort

FRANKFORT — Kentucky gives about $400,000 a year in tax dollars to the coal industry for public campaigns that promote mining, including the controversial practice of mountaintop removal.

The money is funneled through non-profit groups controlled by the coal industry, such as the Kentucky Foundation, which is run out of the Lexington office of the Kentucky Coal Association and led by Bill Caylor, the association's president, according to tax and corporate records.

The money is used largely for statewide classroom programs designed "to carry a positive message about the coal industry," according to records. A Web site with teaching materials and games describes mountaintop removal mining as "simply the right thing to do - both for the environment and for the local economy - a true win-win."

State officials ordered the Web site's content altered to sound more neutral this week after the Herald-Leader asked about it.

Gov. Steve Beshear and a legislative committee have approved adding $17,500 to this year's $100,000 contract for the Kentucky Foundation so it can conduct a study showing the economic benefits of coal mining to the state. A retired University of Kentucky economist will be hired for the task, Caylor said.

"The environmentalists throw out a lot of negative stuff, like kids who are suffering from asthma because they breathe particulate matter from living near a coal-fired power plant, or deaths caused on the roads by big coal trucks," Caylor said. "We're trying to counteract that."